Baby Blue

5:15-5:30p: Showed up for my private with Gavin early to stretch. First time putting on the Blue Belt. It's an HCK brand and I tried a dozen times or so to tie it properly with the label upright...fail. Such a Baby Blue. Can't even tie my belt. Tsk tsk. Shawn (Purple) was training with some of Spider's top kickboxing guys. He looked beat. Could tell he had a rough (as in good rough) session. Wish I could have been there earlier. Shawn told me to quit my job and show up next week at 4pm. Maybe I'll leave work early with a mysterious illness? ;-)

5:30-6:30p: Private. In many ways this was my favorite private yet. Almost everything we worked I knew, but Gavin refined details. Worked mount and technical mount escapes, half guard to full guard recovery and half guard sweeps, and some closed guard sweeps and subs. Finished with spider, de la riva, and x-guard sweeps.

6:30-6:45p: Stretched and watched Professor Matthias roll with Doc Ken (4-stripe Purple) and Gavin (4-stripe Purple). Good, solid rolls.

6:45-7p: Doc Ken asked me to roll. I was hesitant at first because I wasn't warm and my neck has been...well...problematic to say the least. Ken is a big strong guy and I was feeling pretty fragile. So glad I said yes. It was a great warm-up roll. Challenging. Had a couple solid escapes and guard recoveries from bad spots. Almost pulled off a butterfly sweep to side control, but I'll take the sweep to guard. Ken wasn't pressing me too hard, but he pushed me as hard as I could take and I was pleased with my performance.

7-7:15p: Warm-up.

7:15-7:30: Pummeling and take down drills. I'm not a good dancer. Shot a double underhook take down on Andrew (Brown) and got an electric jolt down my right arm and hand. Arghhh.... No take downs...

7:30-8p: Technique. De la Riva to omoplata followed by koala guard to single leg take down if opponent tries to pull out of the omoplata set up.

8-8:30p: Rolls. 6 minute rounds. Crowded mats tonight so we grouped in threes. Got Noor (Blue) and Jeremy (White), then Noor again. Three in a row. Lots of technical work. Standing guard passes, sweeps, escapes. Used a new De la Riva sweep Gavin showed me tonight a few times. It's basically a sweep off a pass variation and can tell it's going to be one of my favorite sweeps. Some successful inverted guard to guard recovery. Was worried it would pressure my neck, but no problems. Had difficulty securing positions and lost a number of submission attempts. Need to remember: Position before submission. Managed a gi choke from technical mount. Got kneed in the jaw. Knocked me silly. Had difficulty chewing tonight. Pain...bleh.